Walk Away
by yasminakohl
Summary: Five Finger Death Punch's Walk Away Song Fic with Tony and Gibbs just after Gibbs explosion have to go look for the lyrics yourself
1. Chapter 1

So due to a whiner you will have to go look for the lyrics on your own. An if a certain catreads my stories again i may just have to write one that breaks every rule...cuz i can.

Tony stood in the hospital doorway wondering if there was any way he could walk away, was there a way to pretend it all wasn't real?

For years he had been dealing with this demon and trying to make it in to an angel. He knew now that was never going to happen.

He should just walk away but unlike the song playing in his head there was everything left to feel. Leroy was not an angel and never would be, but he loved the man too much to walk away.

_This_ was his hell and there was no way to make it easier. Leroy didn't remember them, he only remembered a wife and a child no one knew he had had. There was a war torn marine before him, but that war had ended a decade ago, replaced by new wars.

He watched his Leroy disappear and their Leroy appear and it was killing him.

His Leroy had fallen and it was no laughing matter, but it seemed he was going to have to pretend he never cared at all.

He was watching as their Leroy shaved his head in a horrible attempt to reconcile the Leroy he saw in the mirror and the Leroy that had moved into his mind. He watched as his Leroy fell into the sink to be washed away.

His heart shattered and he turned away before he did something stupid like scream in agony or worse, take out his government issued weapon of its holster on his hip and shoot himself in the head. A hip his Leroy had gripped and left bruises on only hours before they left for this hellish op. Tony knew he would do what he could to keep those bruises there because it would be the only tangible link to his Leroy.

They had decided to move in together after years of never even leaving a shirt at the others place, they where going to start moving Tony's things after the operation was over… to late now.

Tony was aware of where he was only when the sound level changed around him. He had walked outside and was standing in front of a small water fountain on the hospital grounds. He sat down on a bench and dropped his head into his hands. He wanted to cry, to scream, to rant, to change time.

But he couldn't do any of it. He was to numb, to shattered, if he gave in to any of what he wanted to do he would never be able to put himself together again. God he felt like Humpty Dumpty. A manic giggle escaped, and Tony covered his mouth with his hand before another could escape. His chest hurt, it was so tight, it had only hurt that badly once before, when he had gotten the plague.

A million songs ran through his head…he might always mention movies to everyone but he had a song for every situation more than he had a movie ready. He just didn't share that with everyone.

The fates were cruel, because as Tony was sitting on the bench, he saw their Leroy walk towards him, but stop at a table with a man Tony barley knew. He knew it was Mike Franks. Tony, ever the masochist, watched the scene unfold in front of him and knew he had for certain, his Leroy was forever gone.

Why couldn't he leave? Why couldn't he just walk away? Why couldn't he have never cared at all?

Tony did walk away though, he walked away to his car and drove to the Yard. He went through security on autopilot and went to the bullpen the same way. At his desk he pulled out a letter he had written up years ago but could never make himself get rid of it.

Now he knew why…it had been waiting for this very day.

Printing the letter he set it on his desk, turning he picked up his Mighty Mouse stapler, and then he opened his bottom desk drawer and opened the locked box inside.

Biting the inside of his cheeks he pulled the various metal out and set them on the desk next to the letter. Standing, he stopped and picked up one box, then continued out of the bullpen to the elevator.

He took it to the top floor then took the stairs to the roof. He didn't know if he could do this here or not but it seemed as good of a place as any. This was home after all…well as much of a home as he would ever have now.

Walking to a nice secluded section of the roof, Tony sat down and looked at the box in his hand. That was his Leroy. It was the last Medal of Commendation that NCIS had awarded his Leroy. Of course Leroy being Gibbs he hadn't personally gone to receive the award, Tony had. And he had been humbled to receive it in his partner's stead. But of course no one knew that the partner status was anything but work related.

Opening the box Tony let every good memory wash over him, every caress, every touch, kiss, every glide of skin to skin, every laugh, every argument that ended up with them plastered to each other with sweat. Tony finally let every ounce of pain and anguish out. Giving in Tony screamed in the agony he felt. He pulled the gun from its holster and looked at it. He tried not to give in to the manic laughter that was threatening to take him over again.

Tony turned the gun barrel towards him, and looked deep in to the soul of the weapon. He knew someone would think him crazy for thinking that a gun had a soul but he knew it did. Besides he was crazy with grief.

Staring deep in to the black Tony slowly very slowly pulled the trigger back and waited with held breath for the pain to ratchet up and then stop all together.

But instead there was pain in the back of his head and in his gun hand.

"TONY!"

Tony was curled on his side cradling his hand and trying to decide what hurt more, his head, his mind, his heart, his chest or his hand. Hearing Ziva's voice near him only made everything hurt a thousand times more.

No one was supposed to find him yet. No one was supposed to know he was gone until he was _gone_.

"Oh Tony." Ziva knelt next to him and pulled him up and into her arms. "How could we have all missed it?" Ziva stroked the back of Tony's head were she had kicked it before wrenching his weapon from him hand.

"I can't Ziva, you have to let me…I can't."

"It's alright yedid sheli. We are here to help you. Please don't leave us too."

At that Tony began to sob and Ziva knew she had made everything worse. Well not worse but not better.

Movement to her left caught her attention and she turned slowly to see who was there. Standing on the roof was the source of Tony's pain. Battered and bruised, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, stood looking as lost as ever, maybe more so since he had woken up broken. Ziva had tried to get him to remember her for her own reasons but now she wished even more than he knew who they were.

Tony was lost in his world fill with grief he didn't notice the position change as Ziva adjusted to see Gibbs better.

Ziva watched Gibbs move in front of her and saw the slight recognition of Tony. But it was not nearly what it should have been considering the anguish Tony felt at being forgotten.

Ziva watched Gibbs reach out and brush a lock of hair from Tony's face. This only made Tony sob harder in her arms. Not being the emotional member of the group Ziva wasn't sure how to comfort either person. She was glad she was the first one to find Tony's letter but now she wished she had been the only one to find it.

Why hadn't she shoved it in the desk drawer, thrown it away, anything to protect Tony from this torment?

Jethro sat down on the roof with Ziva and Tony. Things weren't adding up in his head. Worse than he could figure out…there where memories that weren't his but yet they were. There was a memory of telling Tony he had to live with a strange blue light surrounding them. There was a memory of Tony limping out of the elevator, so many memories with Tony. Almost all of them were related to work…almost.

The one that had him all but begging Franks to drive him to the yard to find the blond in his mind, was the reason he was on the roof with the sobbing man in the arms of the Israeli agent who had already demand in tears that he remember them, remember her.

That memory was one were Tony was beneath him with a look of sheer ecstasy that could only come from one act. This memory continued as he leaned in and kissed Tony and Tony kissed him back.

"Tony?"

Tony couldn't look, it was still their Leroy. His was still back in that freighter, dead. Tony had to think of his Leroy as dead. He had to grieve or he would be dead to. That was why he had go on to the roof after all.

"Tony, please. I don't know what it is that I don't know."

Ziva felt Tony curl farther into her. She was almost wishing she had been a second to late. He was so much more broken than Gibbs. Finding her voice Ziva spoke for Tony, "I do not think he can withstand your not knowing what you do not know." She tipped her head toward the pistol to her right. The slide was disengaged and the safety now on, but the intent was there for anyone to understand, even someone as out of place and time as Gibbs was at the moment.

Jethro picked up the weapon and slid the slide forward and released the clip. Checking the clip out of habit he found it to be full. He flipped it behind him, satisfied with the amount of time it scrapped across the roof. Then he checked the chamber and once satisfied there wasn't a round left he put it back were he had picked it up from.

He wished he had his memories so he knew how to deal with the man before him. Was this a new thing, a one time thing, and long time thing? Tony had only come in once since he woke up and he had called him Boss. What didn't he know about his own life? His heart? Did he love this man? Did he despise him for what had passed between them?

What didn't he know?

"Ziva?"

She didn't know what he was asking her. Did he want her to leave, fill in the blanks that were just as blank for her as they were for him.

She shrugged and held Tony's silent form.

"Give us a minute Ziver."

Ziva's heart skipped a beat at the nickname Gibbs had used for her, maybe he remembered more than he thought he remembered.

Stroking Tony's hair again she leaned down and kissed his brow, "I will be just inside the door if you need me, yedid sheli." Ziva slipped out from under Tony, who only curled in on himself more.

Walking away was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life, more so that leaving Israel, which the more she was in America the more she thought she would never see her homeland the same again.

Tony pulled himself up and picked up the box sitting next to him. Neither Leroy or Ziva had noticed it. He opened the box and looked at for a moment. The emotions tied to it were to much. He closed the box with a snap and threw it to the roof top. He got up but shoved Leroy away when he stepped towards him.

"Don't. I can't Boss…" Tony's voice cracked. If they weren't going to let him end it then he had to keep his sanity, so he was going to think of hid Leroy as only dead. Gibbs had to go back to being Boss or Gibbs.

Jethro stood and watched the man he didn't know struggle with everything. He wanted to comfort him but he didn't know how. The Israeli had pointed out the gun, and from the way the man was holding his hand, Jethro was sure she had taken it from him by force.

"When?" Jethro asked.

"Forever. Never." Tony answered.

"I'm trying to make sense of what's up here." Jethro offered.

"I'm not up there, they are."

"You are here, it's I just don't know how much is suppose to be there." As the words tumbled out the man's shoulders slumped more.

Jethro cursed and debated whether to reach for the man or not. When he watched him step closer to the edge he walked silently towards him. As the blond leaned forward, Jethro grabbed his arm and pulled him into his arms. "Don't."

"WHY DO YOU CARE?!"

"BECAUSE I DO!"

"Why?" Tony whispered.

Jethro whispered back, "I don't know."

Tony couldn't stay on this roller coaster. He shoved away from Leroy and sprinted the few steps to the roof top edge, but even battered and old Leroy beat him to it and pulled him back again from the precipice. This time however Leroy pulled him down to the rooftop. "Am I so important to you that you can't live with out me?"

"YES!" Tony screamed at the face that wasn't the man that he loved. "God yes. You and this job are my life. I can't do this job with out you here." Tony sobbed.

Jethro looked down at the man beneath him, looking so much like the man in that memory but looking nothing like him at the same time. "What can I do?"

"Remember me and not them." Tony said the words and had no regrets.

Jethro swallowed hard. Could he forget his girls for this man? This man he didn't know. They told him his girls were gone, almost a decade gone. How long had he been with this man? Dearing to ask the question again that had driven Tony to the root edge Jethro asked again, "When?"

Tony turned away from Leroy; he couldn't look at him and tell him about their life. "Five years. Just after I started."

"Forever," Jethro answered.

Tony didn't respond. Jethro looked at him again and tried to will something to come back to him. Their first kiss, the first time the made love. Anything.

"Besides Ziva, who knows?"

"No one. She didn't know until she came up here."

"Never."

Tony wanted to die with each second. Why could his plague spontaneously regenerate and take him. What was making everything worse was to keep Tony still Leroy had him pinned to the rooftop by sitting on him, a position entirely to familiar.

"If you're going to leave me and take everything good in my life, just let me go," Tony pleaded. In a moment of pure insanity Tony sang the chorus to the song that had popped into his head the second he saw their Leroy.

"Just walk away make it easy on yourself

Just walk away please release me from this hell

Just walk away there's just nothing left to feel

Just walk away pretend that none of this is real."

Jethro hurt as Tony sang the lyrics to a song he didn't know, but he could hear the torment in the man's voice. He wanted to take it away but he just didn't know how.

"It's called Walk Away. The band's name is Five Finger Death Punch. Very appropriate right now, don't cha think?"

Jethro knew what the man wanted him to do but he couldn't and that was killing him as much as it appeared to be killing Tony.

"I want to remember you, us. I want to know what day it is, but its not there. But I don't think it will ever come back if you do this." Jethro gestured to the edge.

"Leroy I cant's stay here. I can't do this, live this life without you."

"What if there is a better life out there, than with a broken Marine who can't remember…"

Tony did the one thing that he could think of he pulled their Leroy down to him and kissed him. When their Leroy didn't change to his Leroy he shoved the man off and ran to the opposite side of the roof.

The fates hated him because three steps from the other edge Ziva stood arms open. When he pivoted to move past her block she pivoted as well and took him down. But as soon as she was down she was up dragging Tony with her. She pulled him from the rooftop to the stairwell and before he could think to jump the railing she had him over her shoulder and down the flight and into one of the empty rooms.

"This must stop Tony. You are not this man. You are stronger than this. If Gibbs had died you would be grieving but you would be strong."

"I'm tired Ziva, I'm tired of being strong."

Ziva dragged Tony from the room to the elevator, and punched the button for Abby's lab. Once there she went directly to Abby's futon. Pulling out Ziva pushed Tony down on to the mattress, once there she pulled the blanket over him and then lay next to him. "Sleep, there is no need to be strong now." Softly Ziva began to hum a lullaby her mother had sung to her and her siblings.

With in minutes, exhaustion took over and Tony was asleep and Ziva watched over him.

When Abby came rushing in Ziva motioned for her silence. Abby turned her head to the side and tried to process what she was seeing. She stepped forward and knelt next to her friends. She wanted to sign, to ask what was going on, but Ziva couldn't read sign. Instead she shrugged and pointed at Tony. Ziva shook her head and kept stroking his hair.

Another sound drew her attention to the doorway and again saw Gibbs standing there looking awful.

Abby heard him and turned. Stifling a squeal she bolted towards the man who was more father than co-worker.

He paused at the rib-crushing hug but returned it with a pat on the shoulder.

Signing to Abby, Jethro asked how long Ziva and Tony had been in her lab? Abby answered that she didn't know and she didn't know why they where even there. When she asked if Gibbs knew she didn't get an answer back.

Jethro didn't know if the group not knowing about he and Tony was something Tony had wanted, that they had wanted or if it was a work mandate. He couldn't tell her without knowing why she didn't know.

Tony began shifting in his sleep, mumbling, whimpering. Ziva tried to calm him, she began humming again, but that seemed to only add to Tony's agitation.

Jethro walked over to Tony and ran a soothing hand over Tony's back. That stilled the sleeping man but only for a moment. Then the shifting turned to thrashing, and the thrashing turned into Tony sitting up straight, screaming. Jethro had a flash of this happening before. He pulled Tony into his arms and hugged him.

"I'm here. I'm here."

"No your not. You're not mine. You're theirs." Tony's voice broke.

Leaning back, Jethro looked at Tony and asked, "Can't I be both?"

Looking deep into Leroy's eyes, tony let one tear slid down his cheek, "No, you don't remember me."

"I want to, can you give me time?" Jethro asked.

Pushing up and away from the man who wasn't his anymore, he said, "No I have to, I have to just walk away."


	2. Chapter 2

Tony stopped at the door way without turning around, "Please don't follow me. I promise I will not..." Tony's voice caught and he swallowed past the tightness in his throat. "It's up there. I promise."

Tony walked through the door and Abby tried rushed to the door but Ziva stopped her.

"Abby he needs time."

"What is going on? Gibbs what? Gibbs?" Abby was in tears, not sobs but the silent tears that fall on their own.

Jethro shook his head, he couldn't answer her.

Ziva had no problems with it though. "Tony and Gibbs have been together."

Abby turned and looked at the woman as if she had grown three heads. "Wh..ho..I..uh..go..oh."

Jethro wasn't sure how he was suppose to react. He...he just didn't. The op had gone south in so many ways. The ship was gone, so many unneeded deaths, he couldn't keep then and now straight. He couldn't do this. Whatever this was. He saw Abby turn to him, the tears still streaming. Her makeup following the tracks of the tears making her look like some sad gothic clown.

She stepped towards him and pulled him in to a soft hug.

The emotions were there. Everything he felt for her. She had taken Kel...he couldn't finish that though. He couldn't finish her name.

"Gibbs?"

"Yeah Abs?"

Ziva knew he remembered more than he knew. He was using the nicknames he had given them. Why couldn't he remember Tony.

"You have to fix it."

"I don't know what's broken Abs. I don't know...

"He does not know what it is he does not know Abby." Ziva finished for Gibbs when his voice trailed off.

"You have to find Tony and remember what it is you dont remember."

"Gibbs what do you remember?" Ziva asked. She watched Gibbs face turn red and his eyes became very dark.

"I think now is not a time for um privacey." Ziva said softly.

Gibbs turned an ever brighter shade of red, and cleared his throat. He nodded and ran a tired hand over his face. "Everything is tied to here. To the but one memory." His voice getting softer with each word. Shaking his head, he tried again, "There is one. I am, I see him. He's..." Jethro looks down remembering the feelings inside him. The feelings of being inside him. His voice is tight and scratchy, "We're making love. The look on his face is," Jethro swallows again, "He's coming and he looks so happy." Jethor's voice cracks and he starts to shake.

Sinking to the floor Abby and Ziva both keep him from actually falling to the floor and hurting himself more. Ziva pulls him into her arms like she did with Tony.

"I made him happy and I can't remember him. Ziva, why can't I remember him? Why can I only remember her? I don't want to forget her, but she's gone." His voice craking again and a sob wrenches itself from Jethro. "She's gone Ziva...oh god she's gone. My Kelly, their gone."

Ziva rocks the man in her arms, trying anything to comfort him. His loss so fresh from a decade old agony. "Why can't I remember him? Ziva, why? I don't want to live with that again." Softly, so softly she almost didn't hear it, "I won't live with that again."

Ziva hugged Gibbs tighter, "We will fix it. We will find Tony. You will remember, you will love him again." Wiping away her own tears for these two men, she swallows away more emotions and shakes her hair behind her. "Come, we will look for Tony and he will tell you everything and you will remember. Or I will kick you and make you remember." Ziva stood and held her had down to Gibbs.

Jethro takes it and pulls himself up.

"I think I need to hear the song he was singing."

Ziva's brows met in the middle, "Song?"

"He sang song on the roof when I stopped hi..."

Abby had listened the whole time understanding but not understanding. Now she heard something she couldn't have heard and gasped, shaking her head.

"Abby?" Ziva looked at her friend and knew what was wrong. Pulling the girl into her arms, "We where there. He did not."

"We have to find him. What if he...That was the promise he made?"

Ziva nodded. Looking back at Gibbs she asked, "What did he sing to you?"

Jethro sighed and tried to remember, his head hurt from all of this. Pulling the lines from his faulty memory he said them, knowing he could never add the emotion Tony had,

" Just walk away make it easy on yourself

Just walk away please release me from this hell

Just walk away there's just nothing left to feel

Just walk away pretend that none of this is none of this is."

Abby squeaked and ran to her computer pulling up and finding the song. Playing the song she watched Gibbs and he learned to understand the song as Tony did.

Ziva had learned a few things watching McGee and tracing where a cell phone was, was one of them. She used Abby's lab computer and found that Tony was on the move. He was going to the one place she had hoped he would go. He was going to Gibb's house.

Walking back into the office she tapped Gibb's on the shoulder. "I know where he is going."

Gibbs nodded and kissed Abby on the cheek and then walked into the hall, Ziva followed quickly and called to Abby, "I will call you when we find him."

Abby sank into her chair and prayed hard that when they did he hadn't done anything stupid.

All the way to his house Jethro ran the song through his mind.

"_I'm sorry for the demon I've become."_

He had become a demon. This was the most evil form of torture he could think of. And had just left a war...no no he hadn't just left a war full of torture. that had been a life time ago.

_"You should be sorry for the angel you are not."_

He didn't think Tony was an angel but he doubted the man had much to be sorry for not being one.

_"I apologize for the cruel things that I did."_

He wanted nothing more than to apologize for anything and everything.

_"But I don't regret one single word I said."_

How could he when he didn't remember them.

_"Just walk away make it easy on yourself."_

Maybe it would be easier but he would never forgive himself if something happened to this man because of his amnesia.

_"Just walk away please release me from this hell."_

Jethro knew that Tony's hell had started the moment he woke up to his own hell. Maybe they could find a way out together.

_"Just walk away there's just nothing left to feel."_

He didn't believe that line at all. If there was nothing left to feel Tony wouldn't have tried three times to kill himself.

_"Just walk away pretend that none of this is real."_

This line of the song was the only line that did seem real. Nothing had felt right since he woke up.

_"Could you forgive me if I told you that I cared?"_

Jethro knew he needed to talk to this man. Needed to tell him there was nothing to forgive.

_"Would you be sorry if I swore that I'd be there?"_

Jethro didn't know if he would be sorry if the man was there. But he doubted it after five years.

_"Please forgive me for laughing when you fall."_

This was where the song changed and sounded more like self protection than anything else, hurt them before they hurt you.

_"I'm so sorry but I never cared at all."_

Jethro sighed and wished for Tony's sake that he hadn't. At least then he wouldn't be so shattered. But that seemed more selfish than anything else.

_"Just walk away make it easy on yourself_

_Just walk away please release me from this hell_

_Just walk away there's just nothing left to feel_

_Just walk away pretend that none of this is none of this is."_

_"Just walk away make it easy on us both."_

_Jethro doubted it would be easier on them both. I would have been if he had never seen the note. Would have been if he had left as soon as the ship was destroyed._

_"Just walk away there was never any hope."_

No there was no hope if he did walk away.

_"Just walk away you already know the deal."_

And here was the whole problem. He didn't know the deal.

_"Just walk away, pretend that none of this was, none of this was real."_

He knew this was all real and he knew he had to do something.


End file.
